Emmy Award-winner Aakash breaks down the process behind producing the music for King's chart-topping song 'Ektarfa'

New Delhi: "Ektarfa by King had a very interesting story; I had initially been sent a basic acapella and one of those lo-fi type beats off of YouTube. After listening to the beat once I decided to create something along a similar tempo but with acoustic or live-band instrumentation. The key elements ended up being a smooth Rnb guitar progression, an Electric Piano, and finally a funky bassline on top of laid back drum groove. Once the bed of the song was created I wanted to add some saxophone, but I didn’t know anyone in Mumbai nor did I have a good plug-in to play it myself. So I repitched and pieced together some saxophone lines by legendary Saxophonist Rob Dixon from an earlier recording session we had done in the USA about 5 years prior.

I started with cleaning and sparkling up the acoustic guitar which I recorded on an AKG C414 through an Apollo Twin MkII interface. I made sure to carve the lows out of the guitar for intros and outros to contrast with the body of the song. I also made sure the EP (electric piano) was constantly panning from left to right to leave room for the guitar and vocals in the center of the mix. I then cleaned and accented the bass guitar so it fills the song consistently by using compressors and dynamic EQ. The drums are a basic Kontakt Factory Library preset which I saturated and enhanced to make it more impactful. Finally, the Saxophone was left organic, I didn’t do too much other than piece together a bunch of lines to fill space efficiently and to fit the style of the song. Post release, the song ended up peaking at #50 on the Top 100 songs in India on Spotify; providing a fresh sound for the Indian audience to fall in love with. Ektarfa is currently at 20 million views on YouTube."

AAKASH has recently produced music for the #1 album in the country 'Champagne Talk' by King and a massive anthem called 'WOH' by Badshah, Ikka & Dino James. AAKASH has successfully transformed from a bedroom producer to one of the finest music producers in the country.